Wellness is Evelyn Shu's passion. When the energy professional is not in the office she works as a part-time spin instructor. Iron-woman competitions, triathlons, and crossfit are her life.

About a year ago she teamed up with her former colleague Eric Melchor, and now the two along with Ernesto Saldivar run Fly Movement, a non-profit dedicated to getting children off the couch and exercising.

The two met while working at Direct Energy. Melchor was in Shu's Friday spin class for company employees.

Concerned about the growing trend in childhood obesity, Eric mentioned his idea to get kids more active by providing them with fitness bands, Shu was sold.

“Eric asked, what if we give kids fitness bands? I thought it was a great idea. Adults use them, why not kids. It's a great fun way to get kids active,” Evelyn, said.

The team developed a curriculum and emailed over 50 school principals around Houston, three responded and the rest is history.

“We are the first to combine technology with friendly competition as an approach to get kids more excited about being more physically active, playing more, and going outside,” Eric said.

The program aims at getting children more physically active by providing them with the resources to and giving them incentives to make wiser health decisions.

“Every couple of weeks we will go to the schools and lead kids in activities like stretching exercises, or jumping jacks, duck walk races, just simple things that can show them they can be active without a ton of equipment. We also provide them with suggestion of things they can do to stay active on the weekends,” Evelyn said.

Eric says that kids now days think technologically, and by providing them with fitness bands and engaging them in activities that makes exercising fun, the kids respond better.

“We give them fitness trackers, break them up into teams and tell them that the first team that the most fitness moves within a certain period of time, we give them a prize,” Eric said.

“After they find out they can win a prize their activity level goes up by about 20 percent on average.”

The program has been a success. The program began with their first school, Garden Oaks Elementary last summer, and just wrapped up it's third this past spring at Brookline Elementary.

Evelyn's hope is that through the program participants will take back what they learn and continue to stay active with their families.

So far it’s working as parents are reporting that their child and more members of their family are engaging in more physical activity 30 days after the program ended according to Fly Movement’s pre and post survey.

“Something as simple as taking a walk together after dinner, being outside instead of watching tv or playing video games. Just a 15 minute walk. It's simple you don't even need any equipment,” Evelyn said.